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Thread: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

  1. #71

    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Leave it to a (notional) Scot to start fingering his bawbees, but one thing I don't have a handle on is the cost of the buy-in. Is it one of those buy once/cry once affairs where after the outlay for durable goods (e.g. computer/monitor/printer etc.) the costs for replacing inksets/paper etc. is rather trivial? Or are you in a "use it or lose it" scenario where a person needs to be making a minimum number of prints per month, whatever the cost-per-print happens to be?

    At any rate, a wonderful discussion...

  2. #72

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Quote Originally Posted by CreationBear View Post
    Leave it to a (notional) Scot to start fingering his bawbees, but one thing I don't have a handle on is the cost of the buy-in. Is it one of those buy once/cry once affairs where after the outlay for durable goods (e.g. computer/monitor/printer etc.) the costs for replacing inksets/paper etc. is rather trivial? Or are you in a "use it or lose it" scenario where a person needs to be making a minimum number of prints per month, whatever the cost-per-print happens to be?

    At any rate, a wonderful discussion...
    As with Large Format where we need sheet film, lenses, light meter, filters, focusing cloth, film holders, cable release, tripod, chemistry, darkroom, scanning, etc. everything in Photography is an investment of bawbees.

    With existing inkjet printing methods it was costing me too much time and materials to make every print. For many of my photos, I couldn't make an acceptable print at all. Fortunately I finally found a vendor who addressed the issues. As a Large Format photographer, a little more investment was par for the course (to borrow another Scottish metaphor).

    With Piezography you need to dedicate an Epson printer for use with their inks and refillable cartridges. (If you already have a printer filled with EPSON inks you can flush the old inks out). You need to purchase some syringes and a set of inks which matches your printer. You need to install software and learn how to use it.

    Presuming you have a Mac (preferable) or a Windows machine, you don't need to buy a new monitor or computer unless you have an antique. You can go to their site, specify your printer model, and price-out a kit. Or call them up. They have sales people who answer the phones and know the products and issues.

    It's recommended that you agitate the inks and make a print every few weeks, to avoid printer clogging, but I have gone much longer and haven't had any problems. This may vary with humidity and printer model.

    I'm not a sales person or affiliated in any way. As soon as I find something better I'll be sure to share info about that too.

  3. #73

    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Lee View Post
    everything in Photography is an investment of bawbees.
    Ha, definitely trying to thread the needle between Scylla and Charybdis, domestic harmony-wise. Thanks again!

  4. #74

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Suppose we have a Photoshop file with say 256 neutral values from 0 to 255 (the number of shades doesn’t really matter as long there is a reasonable statistical number and it spans the full range from black to white).

    Further assume the printer profile, driver whatever is linear. Is the slope of the line just a function of the printer hardware, ink set and paper? Does this question even make sense?

    If we have a hypothetical perfectly calibrated display, I suppose what we are saying is the display is a visual representation of the printer profile’s/driver’s linear transformation of the editing software output? (implies the relationship between display luminance values and print reflection densities is “1:1”)

    Sorry if this is repetitive.

  5. #75

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. That’s the goal.

    That and other features make it a compelling alternative to older processes, but work is required.

  6. #76

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Quote Originally Posted by Ken Lee View Post
    You're right. A reference is needed. They measure these things with Spectrophotometers, as Sandy mentioned. But I wonder if a spectrophotometer is merely a portable reflection densitometer.

    And you're not overstating the case. As you suggest, the Epson profile I used was good enough to make a 10-step wedge that looked progressive, but the result was nowhere near linear. That became evident as we included more steps, and it was evident to me as I tried in vain to make decent prints of images with gradients, like blurry flowers, clouds and skin tones.

    It’s quite ironic that with digital methods we struggle to make things appear analog.
    If you only use a spectrophotometer to measure log density it is pretty much reflection densitometer, but not a very portable one since it must usually be tied to a computer and program to work.

    However, a spectrophotometer is a much more complicated device than a reflection densitometer and typically provides LAB readings, which carry more information than a densitometer, even a color one. I use a spectrophotometer (iOne/iOne2) to linearize QTR profiles of both digital negatives and positive inkjet prints. With the inkjet prints I usually linearize with a 51-step wedge, more is a little overkill but you can average the data of multiple readings and that can sometimes resolve unusual variations. The process is very fast, you just print the appropriate step wedge target, dry the print, and then swipe with the spectro, which is done by scanning a line of tonal values from low to high, saving as the specific type of file, and then dropping the file onto the QTR-Linearize Data app. You then get a line of LAB values that is placed in the printing profile. This operation can in theory be done with a reflection densitometer and convert the values to LAB density, but this takes a lot more time and is not as accurate either. Hand coating with carbon or other alternative processes introduces variations that often have to be solved by hand smoothing readings with either densitometer or spectrophotometer. The magnitude of these variations obviously varies with user experience and skill.

    Epson profiles for AWB are definitely not linear. Typically they have a sharp rise in the slop of the shadows, as this look appears to be one that many customers prefer. But for someone trying to carry out a workflow from image from device, through monitor to paper canned profiles leave a lot to be desired.



    Sandy
    For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
    [url]https://groups.io/g/carbon

  7. #77

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Quote Originally Posted by sanking View Post
    Typically they have a sharp rise in the slope of the shadows, as this look appears to be one that many customers prefer. But for someone trying to carry out a workflow from image from device, through monitor to paper canned profiles leave a lot to be desired.
    So does this mean that ABW expands the shadow values in the digital file over a wider range of values in the print? And, if so, is there a corresponding compression in the mid-tones and/or high values?

  8. #78

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Quote Originally Posted by h2oman View Post
    So does this mean that ABW expands the shadow values in the digital file over a wider range of values in the print? And, if so, is there a corresponding compression in the mid-tones and/or high values?
    In the specific case I tested, no, the high values and mid-tones corresponded closely to a linearized grama gamma 2.2. The increasing slope was in an area corresponding roughly to 70% to 85%. This was a sample that I printed several years ago with an Epson 7880 with a regular Epson OEM inkset, printing with ABC making sure to use only the black inks.

    Sandy
    For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
    [url]https://groups.io/g/carbon

  9. #79

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    Sandy, Ken, or anyone else,

    Any good book/resource recommendations for someone just beginning the digital/hybrid journey but will also need to go deep? I’m picking up a lot of things but I still need the very basics (even things like file types). I’m ultimately interested in max quality but even as I go through the Piezography literature and other things I realize I also need a grounding in the workflow, software etc. If it helps at all, I’m a long time darkroom worker who has gone to the bottom of most every technical rat hole.

    Aims:
    -Negative scans and editing for online presentation
    -Printing
    -Digital negatives for darkroom masking
    -Primarily B&W to begin but would like to learn colour while I’m at it (I’ve noted Sandy’s book recommendation from the colour space thread)

    Michael

  10. #80

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    Re: Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

    If we find ourselves disoriented in the woods, we can run around in many directions and eventually go in circles. Or, we can simply climb to the top of the highest tree and find our way out.

    I suggest you ignore the issues of scanning and printing for now. First acquire some mastery of the central tool in the process, namely image editing software.

    My recommendation would be to purchase a subscription from Adobe that gives you Photoshop, and just start editing images in it, on your computer. Any images you like.

    Books may not be necessary since so much tutorial material is freely available online, as articles and videos. If you encounter an unfamiliar term like PNG, just do a search for it. This will lead you to related searches. Soon you'll be, as they say, a vast suppository of information.

    Here is a wonderful introductory tutorial on Photoshop: https://phlearn.com/playlist/30-days-of-photoshop/. It's not perfect or complete and for some of the topics there are probably better approaches (since there is often more than one way to do something in Photoshop) but it will give you a good survey of the basic tools, for free.
    Last edited by Ken Lee; 14-Dec-2020 at 09:20.

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